Vigil
by DFM
Summary: Castle won't leave Beckett's side. Takes place after Knockout.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Vigil

**Pairing:** Castle/Beckett (UST)

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Castle won't leave Beckett's side. Takes place after _Knockout_.

**Disclaimer:** If it looks or sounds like something from Castle, I don't own it.

**Spoilers:** Knockout

**A/N:** Yeah, I know... I'm one of a million people who are going to write one of these stories, but I needed to.

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><p>Castle had blood on his hands. He doesn't know why he's just noticing it now. He's been sitting by her bedside for 6 hours, after the 2 that she was in surgery, with nothing to do but stare at his surroundings. Yet he hadn't noticed the now caked on, rusty color his hands had taken on until now.<p>

"I love you."

He'd said the words he'd been holding in for so long over and over, as if they were a magic spell that would wake her up. But her eyes hadn't so much as twitched and the words were becoming even more desperate with each utterance.

Maybe that's why she hadn't woken up yet, he mused morbidly. Kate had avoided this conversation with him at all cost; he wouldn't put it past her to stay in a coma so they wouldn't have to have it.

The nurses had managed to get her dad to lie down on a cot an hour ago, and other than his own mother coming in to check on him, he'd been alone with her ever since. Well, him and the guards posted outside her door. The commissioner had posted them there on the off chance that someone tried to finish the job.

As if he needed another reason to never leave her side again. He didn't care if she didn't return his feelings. If she wanted to marry Josh and have 2.5 city/world-saving kids. _He_ wasn't going anywhere. He'd just be the kids' weird uncle who lived with them.

But she wasn't in love with Josh. He knew that, she knew that... hell, Josh probably knew it. Unfortunately, that didn't mean she wouldn't pick him.

Though to pick anyone she had to _wake up_.

"Kate, please... you need to open your eyes for me."

Nothing. Not even a blip of acknowledgement from one of the thousands of machines she was connected to.

"You know, the longer you stay unconscious, the more stories I'm going to wheedle out of your dad..." Not even a change in breathing. "Fine, continue to be stubborn... don't think I won't just continue to sit here..."

Nothing. Still nothing...

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><p><strong>AN 2: **I'm just going to go back to crying now. Oh, there's probably one more part to this... before anyone (Aims :P) asks.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Thank you so much to everyone who read/reviewed/followed this story! Here's part 2 for you :)

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><p>Glancing around the bright, white room as she lay on the most comfortable bed she'd ever experienced, Beckett could not hold back a little groan. She could practically hear Castle's voice going, 'Isn't this just a little too cliché?'<p>

"Don't I get a phone call?" she asked the empty room. If they were going to go all out here, at least she should be able to talk to her mom, or grandpa, or Roy, or -

"Bureaucracy takes time, kid, even here. Do you have any idea how many people are having near death experiences right now?"

She wasn't prepared for the tightening in her gut when she heard his voice and she almost couldn't bring herself to look at him. She forced herself to sit up and he took the place next to her, giving her that little grin she'd never been able to resist. "Mike..."

"Hey, kid."

"What are you doing here?"

"Did those sharp detective skills completely erode with that gunshot wound?"

She glared at him and had to refrain from punching his arm; hitting was probably frowned upon here. "That's not what I meant. I just thought..."

"That your mom would be the one? We all agreed that seeing her again would make you a little too eager to stay."

"Is that what you're here for? To talk me into living?"

Mike gave her his best, 'you should know better, cadet,' face and shook his head. "No, it's your decision. Even if it wasn't, you're far too stubborn to let someone else sway you. Besides, do I look like Clarence to you?"

"I don't know. Change into a poet shirt and I'll tell you." She smiled before they slipped into the comfortable silence perfected by many a stakeout.

_"Kate, please... you need to open your eyes for me."_

Automatically she looked around for Castle, but saw nothing but the white room and Mike. His tone was so lost...

"He's not here, Kate," Mike supplied as if she couldn't figure that out for herself. "I noticed that you took my advice to heart."

"Don't start..."

"You didn't even tell him you broke up with your boyfriend... this would be the second one you've left for him, isn't it?" Beckett winced, but he continued in a conversational tone. "I did like the slight of hand 'Oh, look at this elephant in the room! Let's talk about that instead of this case I'm never going to be able to walk away from,' move. It was very smooth."

"He asked me to walk away." She still couldn't get over the sting of pain at the thought. _Castle_ had told her to leave her mother's case alone. She thought he was the one person who understood why she _had to keep going_.

"He asked you not to get yourself killed. And judging by where you are right now, I'd say that was a very real possibility. Did you think they nicknamed this guy 'the dragon' because Peter, Paul, and Mary would have written a song based on him? You don't have a ring of invisibility to get past him."

"You just used the only two dragon references you know, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I'm out."

"Thank goodness..." She studied his relaxed face and shining eyes. "It seems nice here."

"It's not bad," he agreed noncommittally. "Kate, I'm not going to sell you on anything. I already told you that. It doesn't matter what I, Castle, your mom, your dad, Ryan, Esposito, Lanie, or Montgomery think. This is _your_ decision. Do you want to live or not?"

"I don-"

"Do you want to live or not?"

"Mike, stop. Just give me a -"

_"Kate!"_

A sharp pain shot through her chest, as she tried gasping for air that wouldn't come. "Ms. Beckett, I need you to relax. You're on a ventilator. We'll have it out in just a minute."

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the pain as they worked around her. She felt someone grab her hand, but she didn't need to open her eyes to know who it was.

"Kate, relax. They're almost done. It's okay... you're going to be okay."

"Castle," she croaked out as soon as she was able, "shut up."

His laugh was bordering on hysterical. "Welcome back, Beckett."

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><p><strong>AN 2:** Okay, so I may have been overly optimistic when I thought this would be done in 2 parts... let's say 3! lol


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **This part is both longer and a touch more serious than the previous parts, but hopefully it ties it all up nicely :)

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><p>She knew he was out there. For all of the time he'd spent riding along with her, he had apparently not mastered the art of the stakeout. His car was a good deal more expensive than any other parked in the neighborhood, and he'd stopped directly in front of the house so, even with the poor lighting, he was easy enough to make out. It wasn't the first time, either. About a week ago she'd woken up from a nightmare about that night in the hanger, a dream she was lucky if she only had once a night, and had gone to open the window of her room to cool the damp sweat that was coating her body. She'd spotted him almost immediately. Her first reaction was to go outside and tell him to go home; he didn't need to hover on the off chance that someone had followed her to her dad's house, where she'd been staying since she'd been released from the hospital, but something about his slumped posture made her change her mind.<p>

He hadn't spoken to her since she'd been released from the hospital, and he'd done everything in his power not to be alone with her since she'd woken up from her coma. She hadn't noticed at first, because the early days and weeks of her recovery were a haze of pain and drugs. It wasn't until a month after the shooting, when she was finally starting to make some real progress, that she realized how awkward Castle seemed around her now.

And yet, every night, he sat out there, watching over her. And in an odd way it was somewhat comforting.

"Katie, you're not going to let him sit out there all night, are you?"

Tearing her eyes away from Castle, Beckett glanced back at her father, who was leaning against the doorframe of her room. "I thought you'd gone to bed."

"I did, but something woke me." From the way he wouldn't quite meet her eyes, she would guess that it was her screams, her begging Montgomery not to give up his life for her, that had woken him. Her dad was the one person she could truly say loved her unconditionally, but in a way they were too much alike. They never talked about was worrying or scaring them, afraid to lay too much on the other. Kate was pretty sure it had always been like that, but when her mother was around she hadn't let either of them brood or wallow - forcing them to talk whether they liked it or not. It was something both she and her dad needed, but for all that they tried, couldn't actually give to each other. "I went downstairs to double check that the lights were all off and spotted him. He's not very good at subtly, is he?"

A smile of affection slipped onto Kate's face before she had time to squash it. "No, he's not." She turned around to return to her study of Castle.

Stepping up next to her, her dad placed a supportive arm around her shoulders. "You know he refused to leave your side those first couple days."

"Yeah," she agreed, deciding not argue the obvious fact that he'd all but disappeared after that.

"Katie..."

"Dad, I'm not going to push him. I don't have the energy. If the way Castle has to deal with this is to sit outside in his car, then he can sit out there every damn night if he wants to."

"Maybe he's waiting for you to make the first move," he suggested, as if nothing else made sense.

_"Did it every occur to you that I was waiting to hear from you?"_

"And if it's not that?" her voice sounded small to her, in the same way it used to get when she asked if he was sure there were no monsters in the closet.

"Then tell him to go home and come back when he's ready not to be an idiot." He kissed her forehead. "Night, Honey."

"Night, Dad."

##

She could see him thinking about driving away as she approached the car, the panic in his eyes doing nothing for her own nerves. When she got close enough, he rolled down the passenger-side window. "Would you believe I was just driving by?"

"No." She passed him a freshly brewed cup of coffee. "You know you're supposed to have back-up on a stake-out, right?"

"My normal partner is a little holed-up at the moment." She groaned and he held up the hand not holding the coffee up in defense. "Pun not intended."

"Come inside, Conan. I don't care if those are heated seats, it's still more comfortable."

Staring at her uncertainly, Castle hesitated for just a moment before getting out and following her in. "Somehow, this isn't where I pictured you growing up. It's so... suburban."

"That's because I didn't grow up here. This was my grandparents house. My dad got it after Grandpa died, but he didn't move in until... after my mom."

Castle gave her that look that he always did when she mentioned her mom; the one that said 'if I didn't think you'd shoot me, I'd hug you'. She had to stop herself from saying that she didn't have her weapon on her at the moment.

"I heard you have a meeting with the new captain tomorrow."

"Yeah. It'll be your basic 'what have the doctors said? We'll need you to see the departmental shrink before you can come back and hold a gun.' type of thing."

"So, you have decided to go back?"

Two months ago her answer would have been immediate. She would have said, "well, what else would I do?" But now...

Castle didn't even try and hide his shock when she didn't answer. "You're not?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm terrified, Castle. I don't know how to be anything other than a cop, and I'm good at my job, but... It's not just getting shot. I've been shot before. It's not pleasant, but you get better, you move on. But... my dad had to watch me get shot... he was with me as I was bleeding out in a cemetery." Castle shuddered at the memory, but she couldn't stop. "Most of my adult life has been about finding my mother's killer, but... I don't know if I can do that at the cost of the one parent I have left. I just... I just don't know what to do."

"Be a full-time muse?" he half-joked.

She let out a watery chuckle and shook her head. "I could _not_ sit around and watch you work. We'd drive each other crazy within a week."

"And that's different how?" He grinned at her briefly before becoming more serious. "Beckett... the people who love you would like nothing more than to wrap you up in cotton and hide you away. But you couldn't live like that."

"The people who love me, huh?"

She could swear that he was blushing. She didn't know he was even capable of such an innocent act. "Yeah, you know... your dad..."

"Right."

"God, are you going to make me say it again?" Ah, whining... now that she bought more.

"Did you say it once?"

"You know I did!"

"Declarations during near-death experiences don't count."

"Sorry, I wasn't checking my copy of Miss Manners that day." Castle ran a frustrated hand through his hair, avoiding eye contact with her.

"You know, anyone else and I would think that was just a figure of speech, but you really do have a copy, don't you?"

"It was for research."

"Isn't everything?"

He did look at her then, and Beckett felt her breath catch at the intensity of his gaze. "Not everything."

"Castle - "

"I'm in love with you, Kate. Okay? I meant it when I said it the first time, and every time I repeated it in the hospital, but if you need to hear it again, fine... I love you. I don't want you to go back, but if you do I'm going to be there watching your back. I'm your partner, and if - "

The kiss was awkward at first, as her mouth collided with his mid-sentence, but soon his arms found their way around her waist and her hands slid into his hair. She had been shocked during their first undercover kiss at how effortless he was able to draw a moan from her, but now she could tell that even then he'd been holding something back, just the same as she was. This kiss... this kiss made her feel cherished and desired at the same time.

She broke away for just a moment to pant out, "I love you, too."

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><p><strong>The End<strong>

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><p><strong>AN 2: **Again, thank you so much to everyone who read this story! This seemed like the best place to stop this story before it exploded into something I couldn't control anymore lol. I hope you liked it :D


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